MERCHANT MILL

This department originally consisted of two mills:

Merchant Mill No. 1, which was installed in 1924 and
Merchant Mill No. 2, which came into operation
under T.M.P. in 1960. Merchant Mill No. 1 was
subsequently closed in February 1993 and now only
Merchant Mill No. 2 is in operation.

Merchant Mill No. 2

The new Mill (Fig. 1) with an installed capacity of
1,80,000 tpa was commissioned in August 1960
under the engineering supervision of Scholemann
A.G. of Germany. Brown Boveri of Switzerland
supplied the electrical controls and equipment. It is a
continuous mill with all its 14 stands installed in one
straight line with a provision for further expansion by
installing 8 more stands in another straight line,
parallel to the line of the present stands.In FY14 ,mill
has achieved its highest ever production of 0.410
million tonnes.

Reheating Furnace
A 65 tonne per hour coke oven and mixed gas-fired
continuous reheating furnace supplied by OFAG of
Germany was installed with the Mill. The furnace is
fitted with full automatic controls. The chimney is
provided with a venturi and has an induced draft fan
to control the draft in the chimney. The furnace has
two zones, each fired by nine burners. The heating
zone has one set of controls, whereas the soaking
zone is further divided into mill side and pusher side
zones with separate controls for both zones. There
are two additional burners to heat the front and tail.

Refractories for the Reheating Furnace

The furnace hearth at the discharge end is lined with
fusion cast bricks to withstand the action of molten
cinder. The other portion of the hearth is lined with
fire clay bricks. The walls are also of fire clay bricks.
The roof is of high alumina bricks and is of
suspended design. Six sets of solid steel skids have
been provided. In the initial billet pushing zones,
short, stainless steel skids are provided. The soaking
zones is provided with fusion cast skids.

Mechanical Accessories for the Furnace

Billet Unscrambler
The size of the billet unscrambler is about 9m long x
9m wide.The unscrambler shuffles bars is driven by

a single slip ring induction motor through a reduction

gear. Just before the furnace approach roller table, a
set of delivery rakes has been provided to drop the
billets from the shuffle bars on to the furnace
approach roller table.
On the furnace approach table in front of the delivery
rakes, a billet-discarding device with five throw-off
levers has been provided. The discarded billets are
received in a trough, from which these can be
removed by an EOT crane.

Billet Pusher
The pusher consists of six rams, each having a
pushing power of 12 tons. Each ram unit consists of
double acting high-pressure cylinder with piston and
piston rod. All the six cylinders have independent
hydraulic power packs supplied by M/s Vicker Sperry
India Ltd. The pumps are vane type, fixed delivery
rotary pumps. The speeds of the pushers are
synchronised by a flow control valve provided in
each power pack.

Billet Ejector
The hot and soaked billets are pushed out of the
furnace by a billet ejector bar moved by friction rolls
worked by an electric motor through reduction gear
box and splined shafts.

Billet Withdrawing Device

This consists of a pinch roll set driven by a slip ring
induction motor through a spur gear set and
universal spindles. The upper pinch roll can be
adjusted either manually or by a photoelectric cell
through pneumatic cylinder located above the top
roll, which can raise or lower the top pinch roll.
The billet-discarding device has been provided in the
Mill to throw out bent and cold billets. The device is
pneumatically operated.

Mills
The Mill is divided into three groups. The first six
stands constitute the roughing mill, where strand
Nos. 1& 2 have 450 mm pitch diameter (PD) ,strand
number 3 to 6 have 420 mm pitch diameter(PD).
The second group of stands (stand Nos. 7 to 10)
constitute the intermediate mill, all 360 mm P.D.

Figure 1 : The layout of Merchant Mill No. 2

The Finishing Mill consists of stand Nos. 15 to 18, all

of 360 mm P.D., stand Nos. 15 and 17 being vertical
stands and the other two being horizontal stands.The
Suppliers are Schloemann,Germany.
In all horizontal stands, the bottom rolls are not fixed
and can be moved laterally for squaring the pass and
the top rolls can be moved up and down through
screw-down mechanism. The top rolls are spring
balanced. The horizontal stands are all of closed
type. Rolls are changed through the windows.

There is a rotary shear after the finishing stand to

cut the running bar into suitable pieces. There is a
C & C shear after stand No. 8 for front & back end
cutting. This can be operated in cobble cutting
mode in case of cobble formation in down
stream.Just before the No. 15 stand, there is an
emergency shear operated pneumatically to cut
the bar in case of cobble in the finishing train.
Drives
In the Roughing Mill, 2 stands are driven by one motor
each.
Stands 1 & 2

One motor

400 KW

Stands 3 & 4

One motor

500 KW

Stands 5 & 6

One motor

700 KW

Stands 7, 8, 9 & 10

individual
motors each

500 KW

Individual

700 KW

Stands 15 & 16"

motors each
Stands 17 & 18"

Individual

500 KW

motors each

All are DC motors. All stands have ball and roller

bearings in the chocks.

There are two cold shears each with 360 tons cutting
capacity in the same finishing line with the cut bar
run-out table to take care of the finished materials.
The rake type cooling bed along with the braking and
separating devices and rotary shear No. 2 can be
operated automatically through photocells to cut the
stock length to the cooling bed length.The Suppliers
are Morgan.

Loop Control Devices

Originally, the Mill was fitted with both horizontal and
vertical looper to take care of rounds, squares, flats and
angles, i.e., all the sections rolled in the mill. Presently
two horizontal loopers are working in Finishing train.
The loopers are all automatic, actuated by photocell
through pneumatic cylinders and solenoid-operated
valves and they are reset automatically. Depending
upon the size of the loop formed, the speed of the
succeeding stands is automatically adjusted to control
the loop through looper contract bar.

Rotary Shear#2
Rotary Shear No. 2 is operated automatically
through a HMD and photocell to cut the delivered
bar to proper length suitable for accommodating
the cut-bar on the cooling bed.
The bars collected on the other side of the cooling
bed are bunched together by shuffle bar
mechanism and are cut to transportable lengths.
The sheared bars are weighed in a tough and
shifted to the stocking bay for shipment.
Manual bundle strapping and unitisation is done
before shipment.The supplier is Morgan, India.
TMT Quenching Unit

Cooling Beds
A fully automatic eccentric rake type cooling bed, 88
m long and 8.5 m wide has been provided.
Tempcore facility has been installed just before the
cooling bed for on-line thermo- mechanical treatment
of rolled ribbed bars. The details of this facility are
available in the write-up on Wire Rod Mill.

1 no. with 6 quenching headers for on-line

quenching. Technology Supplier is CRM, Belgium.
Products
Rebar (TMT) :

Grade

20, 22, 25, 28, 32,36 & 40 mm

Tata Tiscon
500D,500SD,CRS

KEY IMPROVEMENTS IN RECENT YEARS:

Installation and successful commissioning of Crop and Cobble shear. This led to elimination of
front split end cobbles.
Commissioning of HMI based mill control system in maintaining consistent dimensional control.
Cpk of weight tolerance through Daily management. Cpk improved from 0.89 to 1.33.
Developed threaded Rebar & successful Rolling of Fe600 grade.
Reduction in section change & shutdown time by 2.16 hrs per shutdown through SMED.
Increase in tons/hour in 20mm section reducing the Billet gap time . Tuning of Finishing mill drive
for better loop control and reduce the Mill pacing.
Reduction in cobble rate through modification of guide in roughnig and Intermediate mill .
Use of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) during Major Shutdowns (MSDs) to reduce
shutdown duration and hence increase the available hours for rolling.
Design & Development of Half Water Header to increase the cooling efficiency of TMT.
Common roll pass up to intermediate Mill to facilitate minimum Roll charging & Pass changing.
Introduced double stage twisting in roughing and Intermediate mill.

SAFETY GUIDELINES FOR

MERCHANT MILL
Hazards at the Merchant Mill are Hot Material, Moving Tables, Flying Cobbles and Scales, Sharp Cut
Pieces, Over head Cranes, Lifting material with Magnet.
DOS
Study

the plant layout. Watch the Hazardous Area

marked Red.

Report

to Chief/Head of the department.

DONTS
Do

not leave without the consent of Training

Coordinator or any authorised Officer/Supervisor.

Do not go to the Hazardous and Lonely places

without the Departmental Guide.

Do not remove or disregard Safety Warning or

Signals.

Do not go on the EOT crane, Crane Track Line,

Crane Gantry Platform.

Do not ride on or Generate Locos, Wagons, Cars,

Conveyors, Fork Lifts, Tractor and Tailors without
the Departmental Guide.

Do not stand or walk-under EOT Cranes carrying

Load by Magnet, Chain, Slings.

Do not clean clothes etc. by compressed air.

Do not go near Gas Burners, Gas flow Controlling

Valves, Explosion Caps without the departmental
Guide. Never smoke or Light a match stick in these
area.

Do not go close to High Pressure Hydraulic System

Pipe Joints, Hoses etc. as any leakage of oil can
cause serious injury.

Do not go near Electrical panels, Cables, Substations and Control Rooms without the
departmental Guide.

Take

Safety Instructions from the departmental

Guide.

Wear

Safety Helmet with Chin Strap tightened up,

Safety Boot.

Use

Ear Muffles and Safety Goggles where ever

instructed.

Before

crossing Railway Tracks, stop, look and

listen and then go.

Always

use marked Pathways/Gangways while

moving on the shop floor.

Always

use Cross overs for crossing Rolling Mill

tables and equipment.

Move

in a group, at least in twos.

Stay

away from Truck/Tailor loading area as

inadvertent movement of Vehicles can result in a
serious accident.

PutIn

and Outsignatures in the Attendance

Sheet, Countersigned by Training Coordinator or
Unit Manager

Do

not go inside Furnaces shutdown for repairs,

or to the Furnace Basement without departmental
guide.

Do

not go near the Mill when Rolling is going on,

Cobbles can fly any time.

Do

not touch Rolled Product with bare hands.

They may be hot.